


Our Spare Room

by SebElessar



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Fluff, Original Character(s), Other, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29677248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SebElessar/pseuds/SebElessar
Summary: The turian C-sec guard sees the troubled teenager in the refugee holding dock and decides to help her out. He and his boyfriend has just lost a roommate in their tiny apartment, and has a spare room. They arrange for a wardship/adoption of the teenager and has some parental scenes.Written because my brother  played through ME3 to show our friend and stayed listening to the NPC dialogue of the C-sec guard and the refugee teenager.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Our Spare Room

Temus walked into the small apartment he shared with his bondmate Auleus. The sweat of a double shift down in the D24 refugee station simmered between his plates and begged to be cleansed. Auleus was placing washed dishes into the cupboards in the tiny kitchen, newly from the baths and in his green casualwear.  
“Oh, hey, sweetheart.” he said as he put the compact bowls in a stack.  
“Love.” Temus answered as he half fell and half sat into the kitchen chair. He was unsure how to bring the question up. Thinking, trying to put the right words together, he began undoing his uniform jacket.  
Auleus scrunched his nose and looked him up and down.  
“Spirits, you reek after a double shift.” He scratched his left mandible. “You really should ask for a transfer rotation up to the Presidium or something. Could use a partner with a brain.”  
“Dorian’s not up to the Presidium?” He eased the armoured jacket off and hanged it on the back of the chair. Auleus rolled his eyes.  
“Officer Gardeny is adequate. He’s just such a … “ He paused and started pouring two cups of herbal tea. “He’s such a straight.”  
“A straight?”  
Auleus handed Temus one cup and sat down next to him. Their kitchen had one small table with two chairs, with two more chairs folded and crammed into a space beneath the counter. It was cozy. They had done their best to make the place as homey as they could. There was always a premium on space in the wards, but they managed. Now that their roommate left they might convert the second space to an actual living room.  
“Something Shelley in the office said. Apparently humans have different… “ He clicked his tongue. “Different ideas on the whole bondmate situation.”  
“Really? They seem like such open people.”  
“Not everyone, apparently. Some are very traditional.” He lifted his hands, bending his fingers around the word traditional. A human way of showing subtext. “I don’t mind him, but I’m happy not to have him around more than necessary.” He shrugged. “Anyway, how was your shift?”  
“Both of them?”  
“Yeah.” Auleus laughed. “Both of them. I’m glad to see you at all these days.”  
“Humph, yeah.” He cleared his throat. “It’s difficult to see all the suffering people and feeling unable to help them at all. Kids waiting for parents that won’t come, parents looking for children… It’s rough.” He looked down into the tea, saw the brown and green tinted liquid steam on the bare white table. Auleus put his hand on Temus’, a familiar gesture.  
“We’ve dodged bullets together. And I love you.” He put his forehead against the side of Temus’ head. “I can tell you want to say more, so don’t stop.”  
“There’s this kid. “ He coughed and cleared his throat again. “She’s been waiting for a while now, and I know her family’s not coming. We’ve been talking for a bit.”  
“Where’s she from?”  
“Terra Nova.”  
“Shit, they’ve been hit hard.”  
“Yeah. There haven’t been shuttles from that system for weeks now, but she's still in holding.” He lifted the cup to his mouth, smelled the synthetic reproduction of Palaven Green and breathed it in deeply. He took a sip and set it back down. “So, you know our spare room?” Auleus stiffened for a second, and looked up at him.  
“Oh?” He sounded surprised. “I see what you’re thinking.”  
“I mean we’re used to living small, we could ask for dispensation to get fewer shifts to make sure she’s settled, and she would get out of the refugee holding.” It all spilled out faster that was appropriate. “And you have seen the people that hang around just waiting to make a meal out of anyone down on their luck and desperate enough to take any shot…” Auleus put a finger over his mouth to stop his beginning ramble, grabbed his head to turn and come face to face and carefully pushed his forehead to Temus’. He let the silence hang in the air for a moment before taking a new breath to begin to talk again, but Auleus stopped him.  
“I was looking forward to a living room.” He said, sighing. “But I guess that can wait.”

***

It was actually remarkably easy to have Katy (not Katherine, Temus had reminded Auleus, even though that’s what her ID said) transferred into their care. She was old enough to be out of basic schooling, but needed the advanced program still. Auleus had made arrangements for a slow start at one of the academies in their ward as well as to make sure there was a youth center close by her new school. Apparently a lot of students in her age range had just arrived from Grissom Academy, a top level human institute and both a school and a centre had opened to accommodate them. Katy was given a spot.

***

The shop was packed with people. Katy wore her new jumpsuit in blue and green as she and Temus made their way to the non-dextro section for the first time. He gestured to the colourful packaging, in a rainbow range quite dissimilar from the more functional Turian dextro-foods.  
“So, you could see why I’m a bit lost.”  
“Yeah, ok, I can see that.” She laughed. “But seriously, the cereal is fine.”  
“Maybe, but I want you to have a say in what you eat, not just what I’m stumbling upon at the store.”  
“I ate ration bars in the holdings, so I’m not picky.”  
He thought back to his days in the infantry, the ration bars, meals-ready-to-eat, the smell and taste of the plastic packaging that lingered unless you ate it cold. The smell of heating up ration bars in boiling water just to get some hot food. He shuddered.  
“I will be happy if I never see a ration bar again.” He said, mostly to himself. “But anyway, give me some pointers, at least.”

They walked down the aisle and Katy pointed to the things she was familiar with and what was good or bad. He carefully scanned and compared the nutritional information to what the medical files he’d requested recommended and he began compiling a list.  
“I really like that one.” She pointed to a yellow and gold bow with a cartoon honeybee on the front. “But mom said it was too much sugar, so we rarely had it.”  
“It seems to be higher in sugar than recommended and higher than compared to similar products.”  
“Yes, but it tastes real good.” She smiled. “And is reinforced with multivitamins and collagen!” She pointed to the marketing blurb on the side of the box. “See?”  
“Ah, I see.” He laughed and shifted his mandibles. “I put this under a ‘maybe’ then, when you’re done with the old one.”  
She sighed.  
“Well, that’s not a no. I’ll take it.”  
“Speaking of, how’s school going?”  
“It’s school.”  
“No thoughts on it? Your grades are fine.”  
“Fine?”  
“You’re great in shop.”  
“I like shop. The omni-tool upgrade has a welder on it.”  
“Oh.”  
“It's not the same as the one back at the colony.”  
“Is that good or bad?”  
”I don’t know.” She said sharply and looked away.  
He hummed and picked a carton of almond milk to look at. It had what humans must find hilarious, a cartoon almond with udders. He didn’t see the appeal. “Almond or… Cow juice?”  
“Cow juice?!” She looked at him with a mix of horror and coy humour. “Cow juice?”  
“What?”  
She began laughing. “Cow juice!” She folded over laughing.  
“What?” He asked, distressed.  
“I’m using that for milk from now on. You say things so seriously.” She gasped between laughs and shook her head. “Either is fine, I like the almond better.”

They picked up a few supplies that Katy picked out, mostly food that the scan recommended, but a few treats as well. As they scanned the last piece, a chocolate bar with a matching dextro variant, Temus turned to her.  
“I know you don’t want to talk about school, but let me know if …” he said softly. “If there’s something bothering you, ok?”  
She sighed and put the chocolate into the bag. “Yeah. Ok, dad.”

***

Spirits damn him. He had left the scope to his rifle on the kitchen counter. The Kassa Fabrications monocular scope that had been misbehaving was not in its proper place. It should be in it’s foam pocket in the rifle case locked inside the weapons safe. He’s kicked himself for six hours all across his shift.  
He thought over the situation again. He left before Katy got home from school, and would not get back until right before her curfew. Auleus would not be home until even later. There’s a span of at least four hours where Katy could get home from school or the after school club and found it. Picked it up or dropped it. And if he missed that did he miss locking the safe? Even if the scope isn’t dangerous what could happen. Would it scare her? The last time she saw a scope was probably on the shuttle, the soldiers on Terra Nova. Will she wonder if they have guns in the house? Will she find them? He had to get home.

An electrical smell met him as he rushed in the door of their small flat. Katy sat bent over a piece of cloth on the kitchen table, a lamp moved to illuminate just the table and little else. Her omni-tool pulsed in pink and blue showing a message had arrived, but she was entirely caught up in what she was doing.The scope was not where he’d left it. As he stepped in Katy jumped and turned. Her face was greasy but wore a beaming smile.  
“Hey, dad!” She said. “Found your scope when I got home.”  
A chill went down Temus’ spine.  
“Oh?”  
“Yeah, I saw that you had tried to open it up so I got curious.” She waved toward the cloth and he stepped closer. “So, um, I replaced the second refractor lens with the third. It won’t zoom quite as far as it used to, but it’ll work now.”  
He looked at her stiffly, her smile going from ear to ear as she began pointing to the mostly reassembled scope on the table. The kitchen was littered with tools, stained cloths and greasy fingerprints everywhere, but the scope looked very clean. A small synthetic mineral lens lay beside the cylinder that Katy carefully began sliding back over the inner structure.  
“Wait.” He said finally.  
She looked up at him, her smile fading as she saw her stern face. He tried to look calmer and kind as he sighed.  
“Let me see.” He sat down on the folding chair next to her.  
She let the inner structure slip out of the cylinder along the guide rail on the inside. The base was clean, only greased on the edges. The assembly was near picture perfect, except from the missing third refractor lens. He hummed and looked it over.  
“So one stage of magnification less, but it’s working.” He mumbled. “And I barely got the cylinder open.”  
“Oh, yeah that was hard.” Katy smiled again. “Especially since we don’t have the proper Kassa standard screw-head.”  
“They’re not selling them anymore. You have to use the licenced service to…” he trailed off and looked at the tools on the table. He could recognise the charred remains of at least three forks that had been welded and fitted into a Kassa head key. He could feel her come down to earth, whatever trance-like work state she was in is fading. “I see.”  
“Oh… I didn’t think this through.”  
“Clearly.”  
“I just - I just get so excited sometimes.”  
He hummed slowly in response looking over the work she’d done. It was good.  
“Are you…” She began. “Are you angry?”  
Her face was reddening, and she looked down at the table. Hands trembling just slightly. He sighed.  
“I was worried.” He reached out and touched her hand. “I didn’t know if seeing it would make you upset or if it would make you get into the weapons safe.”  
“Nah, it was good to work on it. I … um…” She looked at her omni-tool, a lot of missed messages and notifications popped up. “I guess I lost track of time.”  
“Clearly.”  
Her stomach grumbled. A human sign of hunger.  
“Have you eaten dinner today?” Temus asked looking around the kitchen.  
“Um. No.” She answered accompanied by another grumble. “I… guess I made a mess.”  
“You did. And you will clean it up.” He said opening up his omni-tool and dialing in the multi species food-delivery. “But I’ll help.”


End file.
